Forum:2019-10-21 (Monday)
Discussion for comic for . By the typing of your thumbs, something wiki this way comes. ---- Whoa. I did not expect that. This would be a good time for Agatha to regain control... Bkharvey (talk) 04:40, October 21, 2019 (UTC) : Me neither. Here's hoping the smoke knights are loading their blow-guns with Snooze-it #9. Doug Relyea (talk) 04:49, October 21, 2019 (UTC) :Nor me. But she doesn't have an external power source, so this likely won't last long. Unless Karl Thotep gets roped in or something. heteromeles :: Maybe! Just because summoning Red (or equivalent) is one way to get there doesn't mean it's the only way. Afaik we have no reason to believe that's how the original queens did it. But maybe Karl can do something more helpful this time; I'd almost forgotten that he's still hanging around. Maybe this is the (meta-)reason. Bkharvey (talk) 04:55, October 21, 2019 (UTC) Nor me (either?). We all knew the Professors would play this card at some time, but I really wasn't expecting it now. Also, is this going to be Lu's big mistake - going all Queen in Agatha's body and giving Agatha the opportunity to learn how to do this herself? Talk about handing your enemies the weapons to defeat you, if that were the case. AisforAnon (talk) 05:26, October 21, 2019 (UTC) : Bkharvey (talk) 05:30, October 21, 2019 (UTC) : I doubt the second breakthrough is anything ultimate. After all, Snacky aside, Albia's the only 2nd Degree spark still around. All the others were killed by Lucrezia, or by, erm, getting thrown into the wormhole by a 1st Degree Vapnoople (who seemed familiar with the process and hadn't done it), or, erm, whatever happened to all those sparks who found out from Albia over the years all aren't around any more. And LIA accused Albia-in-Trelawney of being a . So my guess at the moment is that LIA "queening" herself is a desperation move with serious drawbacks, or she would have done it long before. If so, it's probably as temporary as Agatha drinking Dyne water prior to curing her boyfriends, and likely less useful. heteromeles Okay, I have something contentful to say. "It takes an organic mind..." This tells us something about Lucrezia's history. She started out organic. So it must be that in her first life she didn't know about queenhood, or not enough to know how to do it. Perhaps it was an early attempt at queenhood that destroyed her lab and much of the Castle? But the interesting part is that the Lucrezia who killed the Queens still looked pretty organic. (Her wiki article says "looking more like a machine than human" but I don't think that's right. It's just her eye.) Was she then just an extremely well-made clank? Or was her body taken over by some (higher-dimensional?) non-organic mind when she became the Other? But there's no hint of non-organicness in her speech or behavior when instantiated in Agatha. So, when on this page she said "I never could do it before," when did she try and fail? Was it in the Muse of Time period, when she really did look kind of inorganic? Bkharvey (talk) 05:53, October 21, 2019 (UTC) : I find it hard to make sense of this statement. It seems to me that up to now it has at least been implied in this comic that the nature of the mind (organic or inorganic) doesn't change when it is transferred into a body of the opposite type, such as Otilia's mind being transferred into Von Pinn's body. Perhaps we are learning different now. ♦ : It is interesting that all of the "icons" forming Lu-in-Agatha's incipient halo are different from one another, unlike those of all of the other Queens we've seen, which have been made up of repetitions of the same symbol (iirc). Does this mean she's going to be a Super-duper God Queen? Or will her halo "settle down" to a single symbol eventually? -- William Ansley (talk) 12:12, October 21, 2019 (UTC) :: I thought that was very funny, actually. I'm sure it wasn't intended this way, but the all-different halo symbols are exactly the comic convention for someone who's been knocked out! Bkharvey (talk) 17:04, October 21, 2019 (UTC) :I think Lucrezia was not aware of the Queens until she was a cyborg. --Fred1740 (talk) 13:15, October 21, 2019 (UTC) So, she couldn’t do this before because her mind was not organic either because she was the queen-killing cyborg or was stuck in Anevka. One would conclude the Dingbots can have the spark but not the flame. What about Zola? Zola’s neural trap captured Auntie, preventing Auntie from gaining control. However, Zola could pick her secrets apart at her leisure. Since LinA has had no chance to add to her knowledge off camera, Zola would have access to the same knowledge that LinA is current exhibiting. Perhaps Zola just hasn’t gotten to that part of Auntie yet. Or is it that Zola was not inherently a spark? So if you put a spark’s mind in a normal brain, there is no longer a spark? How then, do the Dingbots have the spark? Hmph, pondering is required. 9thGeneral (talk) 16:11, October 21, 2019 (UTC) : Why do you guys think "cyborg" Lucrezia had an inorganic mind? From what we've seen, which isn't much, she looks exactly like herself, apart from something in her eye. I imagine it as something like Google Glass, only surgically installed. Unless I'm missing something, we have no evidence that her brain is affected. Bkharvey (talk) 17:00, October 21, 2019 (UTC) :: I can’t speak for others, but the I didn’t think cyborg Lu’s brain was inorganic until today’s strip. I had always assumed the opposite, that it was her original brain going mad in an increasingly mechanical body. Today, however, she says “I could never do it before, but now I see - it takes an organic mind –to find the spark- and build it into a flame!” So somewhere in the past, her mind/consciousness was in an inorganic mind and then she learned about the spark => flame => inferno trick, but couldn’t perform it because of the limits on the mind that housed her consciousness at the time. It bugs me a little that Lu has had plenty of time in A and is only just discovering this now, but there are plenty of things occurred to me years after I had the necessary information. I am also curious why the locket hasn’t burst into flames at this point. 9thGeneral (talk) 18:42, October 21, 2019 (UTC) Some of this will require more reveals. What is known: : In Gil and Trewlaney's visit to Albia's well of memories, there's a frame where Albia met with a young Lucrezia. Lucrezia was likely college/university student age, so Lucrezia knew at least of Albia. : During the repair of Castle Heterodyne, all the other Sparks, and many of the Minions were acutely aware that some of the Dingbots possessed the Spark. Those of lesser backbone considered themselves Doomed. Gil, Tarvek, Theo, and Slepnir did not appear as resigned. : Zola has not demonstrated any "make a tool or device" Sparkiness. She does seem very adept at adapting to changing circumstances, but not sufficiently to maintain a continuous adaption. Surmises: The Other is a Star Trek Borg-like entity, using systematic cyborg replacement to ensure oneness. The Lucrezia that killed and tortured the other Queens was probably well along in this replacement, if it turns out it was her original body. It was put forth in Lady Vrin's flashbacks that the Summoning Engine was supposed to work on anybody, but was re-assembled incorrectly at Sturmhalten. This suggests that Lucrezia-Other was being installed into other women before the events at Sturmhalten. Lu in Agatha confirmed this, that it should work on anybody. I had assumed (yes, I know) the Summoning engine was a mechanical device, that pulled forth a copy of Lucrezia-Other from wherever she was and imprinted it into the subject. What if it contains a life support type device, like that used by Seffie to bring Martellus to England. The original Lucrezia's orgainic body is preserved inside to provide the "copy"? This might explain why Lord Snackleford's device was much smaller. Doug Relyea (talk) 17:55, October 21, 2019 (UTC) : The one eye modified is certainly a shoutout to the Borg. And, oh, I finally get it, those Borg people were controlled by the (inorganic) Borg mind. But Lucrezia has a distinct personality, not machine-like. She gets excited, gets angry, all that. Not reminiscent of the Borg at all. ➤ :::Meh. The one-eye-is-bionic thing goes back to the novel "Cyborg" by Martin Caidin, the basis for "The Six Million Dollar Man". Bosda Di'Chi (talk) 14:34, October 22, 2019 (UTC) :: Yes, it's a dichotomy, Lucrezia becoming excited. At least one of the Next Generation episodes revealed there was conflict within the Borg, though right now I don't remember the particulars. I think it was the episode where Picard was freed. Doug Relyea (talk) 19:39, October 21, 2019 (UTC) : If the Summoning Engine was supposed to work on anybody, why was it so important to Goddess Lucrezia to recover the Holy Child? ➤ :: I think at the time the Professors felt that Lucrezia would want control of Mechanicsburg and Castle Heterodyne. She could not take control herself because her body was of Mongfish lineage. Implanting herself into Agatha's, Agatha's body does register with the Castle as Heterodyne lineage. Doug Relyea (talk) 19:43, October 21, 2019 (UTC) ::: Oh, right, good point, thanks! Bkharvey (talk) 20:53, October 21, 2019 (UTC) : I thought the Summoning Engine had an (inorganic) encoding of a snapshot of Lucrezia's brain as of when it was built. If it keeps up to date, it really should keep up to date with all clones, and therefore make it okay to kill any of them when they get in a messy situation. But that's clearly not the case. ➤ :: Agreed, that it does not seem to keep up with the clones. Thus Lu in Agatha has to return to the Summoning engine to bring it up to date. Not being able to off a clone as you suggest may be the exploitable weakness. Doug Relyea (talk) 19:47, October 21, 2019 (UTC) : The whole point of copying a mind into a machine is to escape the limitations of organic bodies. I don't see any reason for the gruesome idea of keeping the original Lucrezia alive inside a machine forever. Bkharvey (talk) 18:44, October 21, 2019 (UTC) :: The intent may not be forever. The Lu in Agatha seems to luxuriate in Agatha's body everytime it gains control. Also, with the Coward at Heart mentioned by Otilia as Vonn Pinn, I suspect Lucrezia of being unable to voluntarily destroy her corporeal form and to build a device that would do so. Doug Relyea (talk) 19:56, October 21, 2019 (UTC) ::: Just now she tried to maneuver Albia into killing her/Agatha. Bkharvey (talk) 20:53, October 21, 2019 (UTC) :::: It may seem contradictory, yes. Her death at the hands of Albia would have been involuntary, had Albia in Trewalney given in to the urge. Since she's such a coward, she knows that as a prisoner of Albia, torture is the least she could expect. Pushing Albia over the 'edge' would have resulted in a quick death which I took as her objective. Pushing or forcing someone else into doing the deed is not the same in her mind as doing it herself. :::: She knew she had no escape, which was reinforced with her offer to Martellus. That may have also given away that her plans do not include the Blitzengard faction in her quest for world domination. :::: While the Summoning Engine can't follow or track them, there must be some mechanism where the clones can return to the Engine. It may involve returning to the Citadel of Light, and someone or something there knows where the Engine is. Not revealing the return mechanism would have been worth dying for. Doug Relyea (talk) 23:20, October 21, 2019 (UTC) :::: Until proven otherwise, it looks like the GG universe thinks that there are souls (essentia), but there's no evidence that there's a soul-land (otherworld, heaven, hell, whatever). Instead, it looks like essentia are computer programs that run on computer-brains. If this is the case (and note that it's not proven), then the Summoning Engine is basically a backup hard drive, rather than a gateway. This is all surmise, but it looks like The Spark is more mystical than souls are, at least right now heteromeles